


The downside of being a telepath (by Charles F. Xavier)

by going_slightly_mads (Sanashiya)



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Coffee Shops, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9878309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanashiya/pseuds/going_slightly_mads
Summary: In a world where soulmates find each other through their thoughts, Charles Xavier is confronted with a bit of a problem. He can read every mind on the planet. No one can read his. Under circumstances such as these, how on earth is he supposed to find his own soulmate?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nalou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nalou/gifts).



> This is a (belated) birthday gift for my wonderful Nalou!!!  
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Sorry for the delay... Hope you'll still like it!
> 
> Unbeta'd, feel free to point out my mistakes!

 

As Charles noticed when he reached the tender age of seven, the downside of being a telepath was that it made it bloody difficult to find out who was your true soulmate, when you could hear the thoughts of every single person around you.

Everybody dreamed about finding their own soulmate. The concept was written about, sung about, turned into films, into merchandising. It was the stuff of dreams for children and grown-ups alike ; a gift as precious as it was rare, according to statistics, being given to less than 25% of the population. Walking down the street and being able to suddenly feel the thoughts of your destined person slowly reaching out to you from someplace close wasn't a common occurrence _at all._

For Charles, though, things were very different.

As a child, he had grown up, like everyone else, being fed stories of soulmates and love at first sight and undying adoration. So when he realised, at seven, that he could hear some of his classmate Elliott's thoughts, he was sure this was it. He had found his soulmate.

Which was not a very agreeable thought, because Charles, as it was, couldn't stand him. (The boy was an insufferable brat.) So he kept quiet about it. Maybe Elliott's thoughts would disappear from his head if he told no one.

Two days later, in addition to Elliott, he could hear everything his math teacher was thinking. One week later, it was getting harder to concentrate in class when a dozen people or more around him were thinking _inside his head._ One month later, the voices were killing him, never shutting up, giving him headaches and nausea. Not one of them was his soulmate, he knew.  

Telepathy. Nothing to write home about, in the end.

It took some time, but eventually, Charles was able to get used to the voices and filter them, making the simple action of walking down the street bearable again. There still was a constant buzz in his head, but he learned how to tune it out.

So, as it turned out, at 25, Charles was, by the book, the soulmate of everyone else on this bloody planet, but no one was his.

Oh, well.

Soulmates were overrated anyway.

 

* * *

 

Erik didn't believe in soulmates. He wasn't the romantic type to begin with, and the idea that someone was destined to be with him just because they could read his mind was nothing short of ludicrous. And if such a person even existed, Erik was sure they would just take one good look at him, one good look at his thoughts, and run in the other direction, because he was not a very savory character, to say the least, and he knew it.

In the end, it was easier not to believe it could be true. His parents weren't soulmates, and they had been happy, as long as they had been together (before the burglary, before the murder). Being soulmates didn't prove anything. It didn't bring happiness. And even if it did, Erik didn't want it. He had other aspects of his life to concentrate on, like his new job as a mechanical engineer, and it took time and patience. He wasn't ready for anything else.

Which was why, when he felt foreign thoughts graze his for the first time, one very ordinary day, he didn't think much of it. He thought, _"oh, so I do have one after all"_ and walked away without even trying to find out who they belonged to.

He regretted it nearly instantly.

It had been a guy. The voice in his head had been masculine. He didn't even remember what the other one was thinking about, but this much, he was sure of.

The voice was nice.

It was all Erik could think about the next day, and the day after the next, and the one after that too. It was absolutely ridiculous to be so focused on someone he hadn't even caught sight of, just barely heard, and so he tried to concentrate on more important matters – his new job wouldn't do itself now, would it? – and tried to forget it ever happened at all.

On the fourth day, he walked back to the street where he'd heard the voice, sat on a bench, and waited.

It was a long shot, he knew that, but something in his heart had stirred at the sound of that voice resonating in his head, and he was as able to ignore this bizarre feeling of longing in his chest as he was to live without breathing. (Which was to say, he wasn't. Erik had many talents, but this one in particular wasn't one of them.)

No thoughts grazed his on that day, so Erik decided to come back the next day after work, and resumed his waiting.

On the third day, he hit the jackpot.

_Maybe I should talk to her parents? They might accept the reality of it more easily if an adult was explaining it to them… But then again, I can't be sure it would work. This is a delicate matter…_

The voice wasn't very audible, the words barely understandable, like the sounds coming from the TV in the living room when Erik was in the kitchen drinking his morning coffee, but he still got to his feet immediately.

_He's here!!_

There was no reaction on the other side. Possibly, he was too far away for the other guy to hear him, but the problem was : how to find him in this crowd? The street was rather busy, people walking past Erik in every direction, and among them, this man, whoever he was, whose thoughts he could hear.

They were getting clearer and clearer, though; maybe he was coming closer.

Erik was maybe going to meet his soulmate.

 

* * *

 

The day had been quite tiring, and Charles was glad he was heading home. He was preoccupied with Lily, whose parents wouldn't hear a word about her special abilities, her "M problem", as they called it. Charles really wondered what on earth was the _problem_ about her being able to heal people just by touching them. It was rather extraordinary, to him. Many mutants had the ability to destroy or damage, be it by fire, by ice, by water, or something else entirely. Few could heal and create. Lily had a gift, and Charles was determined to make her parents see it too.

Only it might take a while, given how they were even too scared to touch her.

_He's here!!_

The thought pierced Charles' mind with a lot more power than the others usually did, and he blinked in surprise. That one had a very potent mind, to be sure. But Charles had been practicing all his life to ignore external intrusions, even from the greatest minds, and so he didn't think twice before shutting the voice down.

He did it without a pause, and forgot about it two seconds later, when he came across his favourite café and decided to stop for a hot coffee. Scott had accidentally blown the coffee-maker two weeks earlier and the days were incommensurably longer without Charles' preferred drink.

The café was small but nice, the booths were intimate, and the waiters knew Charles by now and offered him a drink most of the time.  (At least, Angel did, but Charles was sure it was only because she was so glad to talk to another mutant from time to time. Charles had asked her if she wouldn't come to his school, but she'd said no, she wasn't ready. Charles hadn't insisted. All in due time.)

But maybe today wasn't his lucky day, because the waiter was a newcomer, and he asked what Charles wanted with a cold voice and a frown, and didn't offer anything to him, not even those nice butterscotch biscuits Charles knew they put on the tables sometimes.

When the boy came back, a good ten minutes later, it was with the wrong order – how was Charles even supposed to drink something with that much milk in it? And he _had_ ordered a black one, no sugar, he was sure of it! When he mentioned it, the boy (in his early twenties, maybe) shrugged and told him to bring it up with the manager.

Charles was too stunned to do anything else than gape at him, and the boy left. Charles could hear him laugh in his head.

_Insufferable little... rat-face!_

 

* * *

 

The guy had walked past him like he didn't even know him.

Right. He didn't. But Erik could hear his thoughts clear as day, now, as he walked by, tinged with an English accent, and he was thinking about some boy, a broken coffee maker and a sudden urge for a good hot coffee, and nothing at all about Erik.

He couldn't hear him.

That was illogical. If they were soulmates, if Erik could hear that guy's thoughts, then the other could too. It was always a two-ways street. In his whole life, Erik had _never_ heard stories about soulmates being deaf to the thoughts of their significant other. Granted, the only stories he knew about soulmates were the ones everyone knew about, written in books, shown on TV, and those were obviously heavily romanced; still, until now, he didn't think it possible.

But the guy couldn't hear him.

 _Hey buddy, I think you might be my soulmate,_ he sent to the stranger – to absolutely no avail, as the man continued to walk towards the coffee shop he seemed to be going to.

He wasn't bad-looking.

Scratch that, he was totally gorgeous, even, with his cherry-red, sensual lips, and eyes so blue they made the ocean and the sky look grey in comparison – and Erik had only seen them for like two seconds, just before the guy walked past him.

So he decided (absolutely innocently, mind) to follow him.

Drop-Dead Gorgeous Guy wasn't going very far. He pushed the door of one tiny café, bell jingling on the door, and Erik waited a grand total of thirty seconds before going in after him.

The place was nice and clean. Wood, though, not metal – too bad, but he didn't come here to show his talents off anyway. He sat at a booth where he could see the back of the head of his soulmate, and listened.

He was cute. Thinking about a girl with dragonfly wings who was apparently working here and who wouldn't come to his… _mutant school??_

Well. That was unexpected. But Erik figured that whoever was behind this soulmates thingy, be it God, Mother Nature, or another mutant, even (and it might just be), they obviously knew what they were doing; here he was, gay and mutant, and he seemed to be destined to another man, mutant-friendly – if not mutant himself, judging by the way he was thinking about the mutant school as _his_ school.

Now that was interesting.

 _What's your name, then?_ he thought.

Of course, he didn't get an answer.

Why the hell was this guy unable to hear him? Erik knew he had many talents, he could manipulate metal and magnetic fields, he could smile like a shark and he also had the undeniable ability to annoy the hell out of anyone who came within a five-meters radius from him (though he doubted these last two had anything to do with mutant capacities), but to his knowledge, telepathy wasn't one of them, and he doubted very much it could just sprout up one day without warning, and only for the _one_ guy. It had to be it. The soulmates thing.

Which was why Erik couldn't fathom why the other wouldn't hear him. Maybe he was deaf – but no, that didn't have anything to do with telepathy. Maybe he was mentally impaired, but his quaint accent and manner of thoughts seem to indicate quite the opposite.

It was all very frustrating.

Then the waiter came.

This one, Erik couldn't hear his thoughts, but just looking at the sneer on his rat-like face (his soulmate was quite right about that), he wouldn't have wanted to either. The guy obviously needed a good lesson, and Drop-Dead Gorgeous Guy seemed too polite to really give it to him.

Hell, Erik was German. He had absolutely no qualms about it.

He got up.

 

* * *

 

_This is a bloody joke._

For a moment, Charles wondered if the boy had a reason to be personally angry with him – maybe he had unintentionally done something offensive? But a quick look at his mind proved him wrong : the guy was an arse just for the pleasure of being an arse.

Which wasn't such a smart thing to do when you were a newcomer at your job and your client was a well-liked regular, Charles thought.

Before he could say anything else, though, the waiter was coming back to him, movements uncoordinated and eyes wide as pool balls. He stopped at Charles' booth, and Charles looked at him, surprised.

«I can't… What the hell…» the waiter said, looking panicked, and Charles wondered if the poor boy had lost his mind in the fifteen seconds it had taken to get away from him.

But suddenly, a deep voice resonated behind them.

«I think my friend here got the wrong order.»

Stunned, Charles turned on the bench of his booth to look at the owner of the voice. _Friend,_ the man had said, but he wasn't even anyone he knew, they had never met, Charles was sure of it : he didn't think it quite possible to forget such a handsome face after seeing it once.

Which didn't explain how on earth the man knew about his order. Had he been eavesdropping?

«What the fuck are you doing!?» the waiter yelled suddenly, looking panic-stricken. «My legs!!»

The stranger laughed. His smile had a shark-like quality Charles found fascinating. The boy, for his part, seemed to find it terrifying.

«Ah, yes», he said, «see, that's the problem with pins, it's made of metal. What was it, car accident?»

«Motorcycle, a year ago», the waiter gasped, white as a sheet.

«Really, that's too bad. I knew a guy a bit like that once, but the metal ran through his entire body. We had so much fun together… Consider yourself lucky it's just your legs. Anyway, as it is, it serves my purpose well enough. I believe my friend ordered a black coffee. Will you change his order willingly, or do I have to force you?»

The waiter swallowed. «I'll… I'll do it.»

«Great!» the other said. «Two black coffees, then. We'll be waiting.»

There was a curious moment of immobility on both parts, then the boy dashed to the counter, and the other one, the handsome man, sat in the booth in front of Charles, who had trouble understanding what had just happened.

«What was that, if I may ask?» he said, raising an eyebrow.

_You may ask, but I will only answer if you tell me your name._

Charles gasped, raising the other eyebrow, a bright smile appearing on his lips.

«You're a telepath too!»

It was the first time Charles met another one apart from himself. Suddenly excited, he watched the stranger's face, expecting a grin, a nod, or any other reaction matching his own, but the man just gaped at him.

«A  _telepath_ », he said out loud, shaking his head. «No fucking wonder.»

«I'm sorry?»

«God, you don't even know. You can read minds _._  It must be all the same to you... I get it now.»

Charles blinked, afraid to think it could mean what he thought it meant.

_You mean…_

_I'm not a telepath,_ thought the other man. _I manipulate metal. That's my mutation._

Oh. The waiter. The pins in his legs. So that was how he had done it… The man was a mutant! That explained a lot.

But not everything.

But then, it occurred to Charles that the stranger hadn't read his thoughts. He had merely replied to his question in his mind, and obviously, Charles could hear his answer. Nothing more.

 _Wrong,_ thoughts resonated in his mind. _Can read them too._

Charles paused.

_You just told me you weren't a telepath._

_I'm not._

_Then how…_

_How the fuck do you think?_

How…?

How could he…?

That was the very moment the waiter chose to come back with two black coffees. He nearly dropped them on the table and spluttered a weak «free of charge!» before rushing back to the counter and hiding behind it. Charles would have laughed, if he wasn't so focused on the smiling man in front of him.

_You're not a telepath. But you can hear me._

_Loud as day,_ the man smiled.

_Which means…_

_Yup._

Charles could feel the way his heart was suddenly leaping in his chest. Not for the first time, and possibly not for the last, he cursed his bloody telepathy.

Because, if this man was to be believed…

(And he was, Charles could already read it in his mind)

…if he really was to be believed…

(God, his heart, his heart was pounding)

…this man was…

(and it had to stop, because he was really going to have a heart attack, there, in front of)

…his soulmate.

«Oh, God», said Charles.

«Not quite. But Erik Lehnsherr will do, don't worry.»

Erik.

The word resonated in his chest, weaving itself to his arteries, rushing to his heart, blowing his mind.

«Erik», he murmured.

«Yup. Now will you give me your name too, or do I have to take a guess?»

Charles watched him, unable to hide his growing smile.

He had found his soulmate – or rather, his soulmate had found him.

«I'm Charles Xavier. Nice to meet you, Erik.»

 

 FIN

 


End file.
